Remote Installation of PCQLinux 2006

If you want to deploy many machines, then it is a pain to

go from machine to machine with 4 CDs. Like RIS (Remote Installation Service) in

Windows, PCQLinux also offers you a similar remote installation facility via PXE

LAN booting. For this, you will require a DHCP server, Apache and TFTP server

running on PCQLinux 2006. 

Firstly, install PCQLinux 2006 completely. Then, on that

machine, make a folder named  /PCQLinux on root and copy all the contents

of the PCQLinux 2006 CDs in this folder. Remember that you are mounting the CDs

and copying the contents and not just copying the ISOs. While copying the files

from the CDs, you will be asked for permission to overwrite few files and

folders.

Once you have created a copy of the CDs on the machine, you

have to create a kick start file, which has answers to the questions asked

during the installation process.

To make this file, launch 'kickstart' from

Start>Systems, this will open a GUI Kickstart configurator interface.

Here, you can set pre-installation settings such as

keyboard type, language, time zone, mouse, display, root password, etc. Fill all

the entries according to your setup requirements and save the file. It saves a

file with name ks.cfg.

Copy this file to the location where you have copied the

PCQLinux 2006 files from the CD.

Host installer



In order to remotely install PCQLinux 2006 via HTTP, you have to configure

apache server to host the installer. To do this, launch Start>system>HTTP.

This will open an interface to configure the apache web server. Here, select the

main tab and give the IP address of the same machine, where you are hosting the

apache server. Next, select the 'virtual host' tab and select add new host

and double click the new virtual host you have created. This will open its

properties dialog. Here, under basic setup set the 'document root directory'

to the location where you copied the PCQLinux 2006 CDs.

Use the Kickstart Configurator to create the file that will be used to answer the questions that are asked during PCQ Linux 2006 remote install.

In our case it is /pcqlinux. Now, from the same properties

window, click on the performance tab and add the directory of your PCQLinux 2006

installer that you have copied above. Once you are through with this, save the

settings by clicking the Ok button. After this, start apache server by issuing

this command.

#service httpd start

Now, open a web browser and check that the web server is

working properly. Make sure it displays the directory structure of the PCQLinux

20006 installer folder on the web page.

Configuring TFTP Server



TFTP stands for Trivial File Transfer Protocol, a simpler form of the File
Transfer Protocol (FTP).

The next step is to configure TFTP server on your installer

server in such a way that it can remotely boot another PC over a network. In

order to do this, open a terminal and issue the following commands.

# cp /pcqlinux/isolinux/* /tftpboot/linux-install/



# cp /tftpboot/linux-install/isolinux.cfg /tftpboot/linux-install/pxelinux.cfg/default

The above commands will copy all the boot files from the

folder where you have dumped the entire PCQLinux 2006 CDs to the TFTP server.

Now open /tftpboot/ linux-install/pxelinux.cfg /default

file in a text editor and change the following entries as follows

label linux



  kernel vmlinuz


append initrd=initrd.img ramdisk_size=8192 s=http://192.168.3.1/pcqlinux/ks.cfg


label text







kernel vmlinuz







  append initrd=initrd.img text ramdisk_size=8192 ks=http://192.168.3.1/pcqlinux/ks.cfg

(Here 192.168.3.1 is the IP address of the hosting server,

where you have hosted the PCQLinux 2006 installer, you should change it

according to your settings).

After this you have to enable the TFTP server so that the

TFTP server

automatically gets started on booting the PCQLinux 2006

server. For doing this, run 'setup' command from the terminal. It will open

a CLI interface, here select 'Services' and from the list select 'tftp'

by pressing space bar key and click the Ok button to save the settings .

Configure DHCP server 



Now, you have to configure the DHCP server on your installation server, so that
the diskless clients can get IP addresses from the RIS server and remotely boot

and start the PCQLinux 2006 installer. To do this open the /etc/dhcpd.conf file

and add the following lines as shown below.

ddns-update-style





none;


default-lease-time




21600;







max-lease-time




21600;
                                               







option subnet-mask




255.255.255.0;







option broadcast-address




192.168.3.255;







option domain-name-servers    


192.168.3.78; #<-- RIS Server IP







option domain-name




"ris.pcquest.local";
       



# <--domain name


option option-128 code 128 = string;







option option-129 code 129 = text;







subnet  192.168.3.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { 







        range dynamic-bootp
      



192.168.3.10 192.168.3.253; # <-- DHCP IP Ranage







        filename




"/linux-install/pxelinux.0";  #<- Boot image File

}







Restart the DHCP server.







# Service dhcpd restart

With this your Remote Installation server is ready.

Boot the client machines from the Remote Installation

Server and you will get the Installer booting screen . Thereafter, and you can

start the installation process on it.